If the election was held today, who would win?

[Mr. Smith]

I still have faith in this country to not elect this generation's iteration of Goldwater.

Firstly, Goldwater was still worse.

Secondly, the country "elected" George W. Bush over Al Gore, Reagan over Jimmy Carter more cases of style over substance.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

I still have faith in this country to not elect this generation's iteration of Goldwater.

Firstly, Goldwater was still worse.

Was he?  His backers were all super-HPs, hardcore white supremacists,  but I don't think Barry himself cared about race.  Barry was the prototype of the modern conservative, but lacked the sensitivity to win others to his message.  He might have scared the s*** out of a lot of people as President, but honestly, it wouldn't have been a disaster.  The civil rights legislation of 1964 had already been passed, and there's no way he could have turned that back.  He might even have gotten us out of Vietnam.  (Hopefully not by nuking Hanoi.)

Goldwater was tone-deaf, but at least he had a firm grasp of policy.  Trump OTOH knows exactly how to tune his message to energize the deplorables he seeks, while simultaneously having zero understanding of, or desire to understand, policy.  That makes him much more dangerous.

[‼realJohnEwards‼]

I still have faith in this country to not elect this generation's iteration of Goldwater.

Firstly, Goldwater was still worse.

Was he?  His backers were all super-HPs, hardcore white supremacists,  but I don't think Barry himself cared about race.  Barry was the prototype of the modern conservative, but lacked the sensitivity to win others to his message.  He might have scared the s*** out of a lot of people as President, but honestly, it wouldn't have been a disaster.  The civil rights legislation of 1964 had already been passed, and there's no way he could have turned that back.  He might even have gotten us out of Vietnam.  (Hopefully not by nuking Hanoi.)

Goldwater was tone-deaf, but at least he had a firm grasp of policy.  Trump OTOH knows exactly how to tune his message to energize the deplorables he seeks, while simultaneously having zero understanding of, or desire to understand, policy.  That makes him much more dangerous.

Plus, the willingness to use nukes cancels out.